Baruch College Presents New Exhibit on the Changing Roles of Photography

At the Mishkin Gallery, September 23- October 26, 2011

NEW YORK, NY, August 22, 2011-- Baruch College announced today that a new exhibition, Narrative, Sketch, Document: The Changing Roles of Photography will open at the College's Mishkin Gallery on Friday, September 23 and run through Wednesday, October 26. An opening reception, free and open to the public, will take place on Thursday, September 22 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Narrative, Sketch, Document is divided thematically into three sections and showcases images from 1926 through 2007. The narrative section focuses specifically on works that employ devices such as a sequence of events or the juxtaposition of text and images. Storytelling is fundamental to the work of Carrie Mae Weems, whose Sea Islands Series figures prominently in this exhibition.

The photograph as sketch comprises the second section. Andy Warhol often worked from color Polaroids of celebrities and body fragments in order to complete the final versions of his silkscreen paintings.

The third section of the exhibition examines the documentary function of photographic images. The capacity of photographs to function as social, cultural, and historical documents has been acknowledged from the earliest days of photography's existence. Images like Milt Hinton's Train Station, Atlanta, Georgia (1940), with black musicians standing in front of a “Colored Entrance” sign, serve as important visual records of American history, in this case of segregation in the south.

This show will demonstrate how the meanings of individual photographic images change as they traverse time. For instance, what was first commissioned as a publicity portrait of Greta Garbo in the movie, “A Woman of Affairs,” can now be viewed alternately as a work of art by master photographer Edward Steichen and as a revealing record or document of a past era.

The exhibition is curated by Mishkin Gallery Director Sandra Kraskin. The Mishkin Gallery is located at 135 E. 22nd Street, New York City. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Friday, noon to 5 p.m.; Thursday, noon to 7 p.m.